Whicker: Jose Ramirez is more than Fresno’s boxing champion

Share this:

Jose Ramirez, right, knocked down previously unbeaten Antonio Orozco twice on Friday night on his way to retaining his WBC junior-welterweight title with a unanimous decision at Save Mart Center in Fresno. (Photo courtesy of Mikey Williams/Top Rank Boxing)

FRESNO — In a world of pigeonholes, Jose Ramirez always seemed to fit snugly.

He was the Activist Boxer, the guy who put on coat and tie and talked to members of Congress about water issues in the Central Valley, or immigration reform.

Or he was the Local Hero, the guy who made people in Fresno whip out their credit cards and buy tickets for live boxing. Not many boxers do that.

On Friday night, the Save Mart Center was a raucous homecourt for Ramirez, and some of the 11,012 fans enjoyed his fighting so much they tried it themselves during the seventh round.

The rest of the crowd kept their eyes on the ring. It was too important to appreciate Ramirez’s real identity, the one that is obscured by his good works and popularity. Besides, you might miss a gasp-worthy body shot.

When this is all done, Ramirez will be known for his boxing, for his fast hands and his nonstop animation and his power, which could be measured on Antonio Orozco’s swollen face.

Bob Arum, chief of Top Rank, was the happiest non-Fresno native in the house.

“I’m very fortunate that people admit that we have two superstars at Top Rank,” Arum said, referring to Vasyl Lomachenko and Terence Crawford. “Now I think there might be a third.”

What Ramirez did to Orozco in his unanimous-decision win isn’t often done to fighters who are, or were, 27-0. Ramirez knocked him down twice, with a hard right to the side of Orozco’s nose and a left to his chest that was the culmination of a body-shot parade.

Although Orozco called on inner resources that are not found in the average person and landed more good shots than Ramirez did in the 10th round, Ramirez won every round on every judge’s card. He is 23-0 and getting better.

“I want to unify all the titles,” Ramirez said later. He is the WBC junior welterweight champion. The IBF title is vacant, a native of Belarus named Kiryl Relikh has the WBA belt, and Maurice Hooker is the WBO titlist after he went to England and beat Terry Flanagan.

As luck would have it, Top Rank has Alex Saucedo to match up with Hooker. That fight happens in November.

“I’d like to see Jose fight the winner of that fight,” Arum said, “but that wouldn’t be until next year. I’d rather he had a little easier fight between now and then, but we do want to get him back into the ring.”

Ramirez is only 26. He had a two-inch reach advantage on Orozco and a three-inch height advantage. He has regal posture in the ring. He stands tall and projects command, much like Alexis Arguello once did.

For this fight, he hired Robert Garcia as trainer, to replace Freddie Roach. It went better than most blind dates.

“I wanted him to use the jab more,” Garcia said. “Jab, get out and jab again. That’s what we worked on and he did pretty well. He could get better. There were times he didn’t use it and that’s when he got hit. I thought we’d have an advantage with his height and when he didn’t stand tall, he didn’t use that either. But that was a really good fight for him and I was definitely surprised it went 12. Orozco, he’s so tough. He deserves to be at the very top of the rankings.”

First, Orozco deserves a whirlpool and some Advil.

“It’s like I tell my kids,” Orozco said. “You don’t lose. You just learn a lesson. I was going to walk into the ring, and I was going to walk out the same way. But he’s a great fighter.”

The fight actually peaked in the first round, when Ramirez and Orozco came out and began acting if they were getting paid by the blood bruise. They combined for 116 punches, according to CompuBox. In the fourth round Ramirez threw 120 punches. That’s in three minutes.

In 12 rounds, Ramirez aimed 1,036 shots at Orozco and hit 36.8 percent of them. Orozco replied with 782 at 33.6 percent. Few of them were a formality.

But after that first round, Orozco stayed on his stool as long as he possibly could. Ramirez had been up for at least a half-minute. That was the first tipoff the fight would not be the cliffhanger some had assumed. And Orozco kept finding it tougher to throw himself into the breach, which gained the attention of the ring physicians.

“He’s been in training for a long time, because that fight (a cancelled fight against Danny O’Connor) didn’t happen in July,” Arum said. “He didn’t come out of the gym. That was a hell of a performance. Without disparaging anybody, but if Jose had been Floyd Mayweather, you wouldn’t have seen two rounds of boxing in the last two rounds. You would have seen six minutes of wasted time. But he kept going.

“He’s going to be a superstar. He’s got a great personality, he cares about social activism. He’s more than a boxer.”